Man jailed for killing TV actor

A university dropout was jailed for eight years today for killing a budding children's TV actor and DJ who was stabbed in the heart.

Carl Beatson Asiedu, 19, who appeared in several episodes of the CBBC programme MI High, was killed outside Club Life in Vauxhall, south London, in August 2009.

The teenager, a student at Leicester's De Montfort University, had also featured in an anti-knife crime video produced by the Black Police Association.

Earlier, Mr Asiedu, the son of a pastor and a midwife, and his friend and fellow student Peter Lama - who was also stabbed but survived - had been performing there with their rap group Kid 'n' Play.

Junior Ademujimi-Falade, 21, of Camberwell, south London, was found guilty of manslaughter at the Old Bailey last month.

Judge Martin Stephens told him: "Your victim was a young man of talent and much promise.

"The devastation to his family is incalculable."

Richard Whittam QC, prosecuting, said: "There has been no suggestion that either of the young men had done anything to invite the violence visited on them."

Mr Asiedu, who had attended St Francis Xavier College in Clapham, south London, was attacked by a group including former school bullies who detectives believed may have been jealous of his success.

Ademujimi-Falade had also gone to university in Leicester, but dropped out after failing his first year exams.

He was a friend of the suspected knifeman, who is believed to have fled to Nigeria.

Mr Asiedu was about to start the second year of his degree in media production when he was killed.

He had recorded a single in 2007 and worked with the Black Police Association to produce a documentary for schools raising awareness of knife crime.

In addition, he had appeared in a small role in episodes of MI High, a children's adventure series about school pupils working as spies. They were not broadcast until last year, after he died.

Mr Asiedu's parents, John, 61, and Hilda, 56, were in court to see their son's killer sentenced.

PA